ACE Open South Australian Artist Commissions 2018
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Gerry Wedd, SONGS FOR A ROOM
Julia McInerney, The Garden
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OPENING
Friday 27 July, 5pm, free
Opening remarks by Penny Griggs, General Manager SALA Festival

EXHIBITION DATES
28 July—15 September

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Gerry Wedd, SONGS FOR A ROOM
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Enter the iconic world of South Australia’s most celebrated potter, fringe dweller, savant gardener and pretty-good-surfer, Gerry Wedd.

‘SONGS FOR A ROOM’ draws on 40 years of artistic practice and an encyclopaedia of personal interests to present Wedd’s most ambitious project yet. Inspired by Victor Hugo’s tiled dining room, more than 1000 handmade tiles and domestic objects form a frenzied and immersive installation that subverts traditional museum displays of domestic handicrafts. Wedd creates a dizzyingly opulent world, where song writing, Delft tile painting, popular culture and art history collide with current socio-political issues.

As part of Wedd’s commentary on the commodification of art and culture in a time when people continue to live below the poverty line, each tile in this speculative shelter is available to purchase, with 50% of proceeds donated to Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS
—A History of Ceramics with Gerry Wedd
Saturday 11 August 2pm-3pm | Free, no bookings required
Read more: http://bit.ly/GWHistoryCeramics

—A Sunday Drive: Studio visit and tile making workshop
Sunday 9 September, 10am-4.30pm | $175/$139
Bookings and more information: http://bit.ly/GWSundayDrive

GERRY WEDD (born 1957) is one of Australia’s most celebrated ceramicists. Having studying jewellery, painting, and drawing, Wedd obtained a Masters in Fine Art from the University of South Australia in 2005. Early on in his career, Wedd became a graphic artist for quintessential Australian design company Mambo, where he continued to design for them until 2006. Wedd has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally, including Havana Bienal, JamFactory, Ian Potter Museum of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum. He has received numerous awards including the Hobart Art Prize in 2010 and the 1998 Sidney Myer Fund International Ceramics Award and is represented in public collections around the country including the Art Gallery of South Australia, Powerhouse Museum – Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Shepparton Art Museum and Queensland University of Technology.

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Julia McInerney, The Garden
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Traverse literature and sculpture in ‘The Garden’, a new immersive exhibition by Julia McInerney, 2017 winner of SALA Festival’s major contemporary art award.

Building on McInerney’s celebrated previous works, the exhibition expands on her interest in translation between text and material forms, as well as the symbolic significance of the apple. ‘The Garden’ comprises new photographic works, hand-carved Applewood sculptures, and a large-scale floor installation of hand-cast concrete tiles, all ordered and contained in a monochromatic vista.

Through her ongoing interest in studies of literature and reading, McInerney approaches Walter Benjamin’s idea of ‘reading oneself backwards’ in ‘The Garden’. How can our recollection of past events inform our present and future experiences?

PUBLIC PROGRAMS
—Footnotes
Various dates | Free, no bookings required
Read more: http://bit.ly/JMfootnotes

JULIA MCINERNEY (born 1989, Adelaide) lives and works in Melbourne, Victoria. Recent exhibitions include Archipelago, Greenaway Art Gallery; Guirguis New Art Prize 2017, Post Office Gallery Ballarat; 2016 TarraWarra Biennial: Endless Circulation, TarraWarra Museum of Art; CACSA Contemporary 2015, Greenaway Art Gallery; Eden Eden Eden, MOP Projects; and Daughters of Chaos, Deleuze Studies International Conference, Konstfack University College of Arts and Crafts. Julia was the recipient of the 2017 SALA Contemporary Art Prize, the 2015 Ruth Tuck Scholarship for Visual Arts and the 2015 Adelaide Critics Circle Emerging Artist Award. Julia is represented by GAGPROJECTS | Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide/Berlin.

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ACE OPEN———TUE-SAT 11AM-4PM
aceopen.art———@ACE_Open
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